Some­times great drama doesn’t need ini­tial com­edy while your audi­ence gets in touch with the char­ac­ters, or a long and com­plex buildup to raise the ten­sions, or fan­tas­tic ele­ments and mir­a­cles. Some­time all you need is to blend together two char­ac­ters with unfor­tu­nate cir­cum­stances and breath life into them. After all, the pie of life is always half sweet and half bit­ter, and by directly con­fronting its sad­dest ele­ments we arrive at some­thing bit­ter­sweet, beau­ti­ful, and absolutely touching.

Maybe illus­trat­ing the manga edi­tion of Voices of a Dis­tant Star instilled her with the same essence that Shinkai Makoto used to author his work; maybe she always had the gift. But either way, Sahara Mizu’s works man­age to por­tray char­ac­ter and rela­tion­ship devel­op­ment with a depth that few oth­ers could reach.

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